In September 2009, India had a
comprehensive internet user base of 35.8 million. The circulation count excludes visits from net cafes and internet connection at households. If it’s compared with the global growth prospect of internet users, it’s
third highest in the Asia Pacific region, China and Japan. Among
747 million internet users across the world, India had over 21 million Internet users at the end of January. The number was below 16 million a year ago. A number of government authorities have made a number of surveys to get exact notations about the growing number of internet users in India.
If UNCTAD is to be believed, India has 35 million Internet users and growing the pace with 89 per cent per annum.
The list below illustrates the year wise growth rate in internet users in India:-
| YEAR |
USERS |
| 1998 |
14,00,000 |
| 1999 |
28,00,000 |
| 2000 |
55,00,000 |
| 2001 |
70,00,000 |
| 2002 |
1,65,00,000 |
| 2003 |
2,25,00,000 |
| 2004 |
3,92,00,000 |
| 2005 |
5,06,00,000 |
| 2006 |
4,00,00,000 |
| 2007 |
4,20,00,000 |
| 2008 |
8,10,00,000 |
| 2009 |
9,00,00,000 |
| 2010 |
9,40,00,000 |
The rapid pace of the internet is instigated in more diversified manner by the internet service providers across the country. If telecom experts are to be believed, there are approximately 180 operational ISPs offering their services in the country. In the race of offering seamless internet service to the customers, MTNL and BSNL have got the first rank among others. The increasing popularity of cyber cafes are fuelling the race by reducing installation charges of the internet and increased downloads speed. Advent of social networking websites has also revolutionized the whole array as more and more people have taken internet connections at their homes.
India comes among those
greater Asian markets that witness the paradigm shift in the internet use and a huge boom in this
service sector by 2013. The percentage of internet users in India would augment to
43 per cent in coming 2013 from its earlier 38% in last 2008. In the Indian internet market, a
verage annual growth rate of internet subscribers will be 10 to 20 per cent in next five years and India's number of Internet subscribers was estimated to be 52 million in year 2008. Internet services segment in India is expected to have a
healthy growth at a CAGR of around 56% during 2010-11 - 2013-14.
